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2009-04-16 Africa Horn

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Posted by Steve White 2009-04-16 00:00|| || Front Page|| [2 views ] Top

#1 Pirate assets? They spend their money on fancy houses (or just plain houses) in Somalia, girls, guns and khat. I find it hard to believe that the FBI is going to discover secret bank accounts in Switzerland, Luxembourg, and Macau. Perhaps we can confiscate their legal defence fund in Kenya, though.

Posted by trailing wife in Buffalo 2009-04-16 09:12|| 2009-04-16 09:12|| Front Page Top

#2 You're assuming the gunnies in Somalia get most of the money to begin with. I kinda doubt that.

Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2009-04-16 09:16|| 2009-04-16 09:16|| Front Page Top

#3 Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday the Obama administration will take the unusual step of trying to seize pirate financial assets and property

Certainly brought Castro in line...er, huh...

Posted by Besoeker 2009-04-16 09:33|| 2009-04-16 09:33|| Front Page Top

#4 "YarrgHH! Surrender y'ar booty!"

Posted by AlmostAnonymous5839">AlmostAnonymous5839 2009-04-16 09:50|| 2009-04-16 09:50|| Front Page Top

#5 US to target pirate assets

Rubber speed boats, mother ships, AK-47s, RPGs, all seem decent assets to target to me. Better to use hard cold steel on them rather than paper. Save the latter for a thousand cuts on the perps.

Posted by Procopius2k 2009-04-16 10:12|| 2009-04-16 10:12|| Front Page Top

#6 Tax them to death.

Posted by bman 2009-04-16 11:32|| 2009-04-16 11:32|| Front Page Top

#7 Once we hit them with a carbon tax, then they'll know we mean business. Or perhaps a cap-and-trade would work better? Either way, that plus a strongly-worded protest should do the trick.

Posted by Dreadnought 2009-04-16 14:58|| 2009-04-16 14:58|| Front Page Top

#8 Unless this means landings en masse in Eyl & its sister-ports & the burning of ships, boats, warehouses & docks, it doesn't mean a blessed thing.

And no, the current Administration doesn't have the mind-set or the gumption to do this. Hell, the previous Administration didn't have what it took. Until the fuckups in international law find their way out of the maze they've built around themselves, the US government and its appendages are stuck, incapable of doing anything of worth.

Next, comes the chaos.

Posted by Mitch H.">Mitch H. 2009-04-16 15:19|| http://blogfonte.blogspot.com/]">[http://blogfonte.blogspot.com/] 2009-04-16 15:19|| Front Page Top

#9 "We may be dealing with a 17th-century crime, but we need to bring 21st-century solutions to bear."

Sorry - considering all the assets the pirates are using, it's a 21st century crime.

Posted by Pappy 2009-04-16 15:53|| 2009-04-16 15:53|| Front Page Top

#10 Luckily we learned farily well during the 20th century how to deal with international criminal orgs. This shouldn't require much in the way of innovation, so I think the current admin actually has he ability to handle this.

Posted by Mike N. 2009-04-16 17:02|| 2009-04-16 17:02|| Front Page Top

#11 Pirate assets consist of whatever they have seized, the ransoms they have collected, and the equipment they have bought with the ransoms such as weapons.

Better to target the pirates.

Posted by JohnQC 2009-04-16 17:56|| 2009-04-16 17:56|| Front Page Top

#12 JohnQC-----right on there. Pirate assets are those items of property taken from the victims, so the best thing is to separate the pirates from the assets. Since government lawyers do not have what it takes to land in Eyl to serve warrants or whatever legal documents, I guess that it comes again to the military to deal with the pirates, in an appropriate manner.

Posted by Alaska Paul in Nikolaevsk, AK 2009-04-16 19:08|| 2009-04-16 19:08|| Front Page Top

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